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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22768582">phantom softness</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sprytemark/pseuds/alliariondak'>alliariondak (Sprytemark)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Kingdom Hearts</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Almost completely fluff, Fluff, Gen, and vanitas, as with all my fics you can put on ship goggles if ya want to, but get to be anyway, like floods, sora has a tendency to pet things that probably shouldnt be pet, the title in my docs is "pets :)"</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 13:01:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,153</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22768582</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sprytemark/pseuds/alliariondak</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i></i>
</p>
<p>He can sort of feel the direction from which the unversed is sending him those signals, but it takes him a few doors before he roughly pushes open the right one. </p>
<p>
  <i></i>
</p>
<p>And sees Sora, in a small puddle of floods, making soft nonsense sounds at the one he’s full-on wiggling the cheeks of, while the others snuffle around and pop out of their own shadow puddles to try to get his attention. </p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sora &amp; Vanitas (Kingdom Hearts)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>186</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>phantom softness</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>for nichi, whose few but powerful words granted me the ability to black out and write a whole fic in like an hour??</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Vanitas was having a normal, fine, completely uneventful afternoon. Training in the morning, lunch, reading whatever Aqua wanted them to read afterwards, trying not to sneer too hard at whatever Aqua wanted them to read afterwards, not caring about where the floods he made from that went so long as they stayed inside the castle, contemplating getting another snack because no one is in the kitchen. Uneventful. Routine. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And then Vanitas drops the very heavy textbook on the ground with a </span>
  <em>
    <span>SMACK</span>
  </em>
  <span> because something is touching the small of his back. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He startles and whips around, finding no one in the room — and then wags his hand around behind him, finding nothing actually there. It’s gone now, only leaving a slight memory of contact. He scoops up the textbook and tosses it on a desk. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Frowning, Vanitas pulls himself over the couch to peek behind it, just in case someone had the speed to hide behind there while he was turning around. No one’s there. He slides down into a sit on his ankles, frowning harder. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>If it’s not anyone in this room — did he imagine it? Sometimes Sora pulls his phone out of his pocket when there aren’t any messages and no one’s calling, even though he swears he felt it. Vanitas doesn’t want to step </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span> low, but —</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And the thought is immediately tossed out the window, because he feels it </span>
  <em>
    <span>again</span>
  </em>
  <span>, like someone running a hand down his spine. It’s like barely being touched, a ghost of contact just close enough to make him shiver, but echoed, through something that isn’t him. Vanitas buries his forehead between the couch cushions, and impossibly frowns even harder. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oh, he knows exactly what this is. He’s going to kill them. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Once they... stop doing. That. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Petting</span>
  </em>
  <span> one of his irritations. It feels weird. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Come back here,</span>
  </em>
  <span> he pushes, trying to call as many of his Unversed as he can with their hazy connection. At least, trying to make the flood being pet escape its little hand prison. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It does not do that. In fact, the ghost sensations move to right above the back of his neck, scratching low on his scalp and behind his ears. Vanitas slides his head down from between the cushions until it’s fully buried beneath the tacky throw pillow in the corner, hiding as much of himself as possible. It’s. Very warm. And weirdly tingly, not really like much other touch, or pseudo-touch, he’s used to. And weird. He finds himself strangely unable to storm down the hallway quite yet — obviously because the flood is stuck or something, not because he wants to stay here. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A quiet caw sounds from above the pillow. Vanitas jerks his head up, and glares at the single archraven that obeyed his orders. The pillow flops onto the floor.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Not you,” he growls. “Where are the others?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The archraven beeps, and cocks its head, and the ghost hand moves higher on the flood’s head and therefore higher into Vanitas’ hair and Vanitas stumbles off the couch and into the hall, grumbling. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He can sort of feel the direction from which the unversed is sending him those signals, but it takes him a few doors before he roughly pushes open the right one. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And sees Sora, in a small puddle of floods, making soft nonsense sounds at the one he’s full-on wiggling the cheeks of, while the others snuffle around and pop out of their own shadow puddles to try to get his attention. A scrapper has its face squashed through Sora’s elbow, like a cat worming its way through a fence. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas stands there, for a second, disbelieving. A couple floods turn towards him, and start wiggling faster. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“All of you?” He barks. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh! Vanitas! I was wondering what was going on,” Sora says, oblivious, but at least he stops petting the flood. It pushes its forehead into his stomach. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How did you corner </span>
  <em>
    <span>all</span>
  </em>
  <span> of them?” Vanitas asks. He’s still standing in the doorway.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Uhmmm... I dunno! I found one under my covers, and the rest of them sort of came over themselves. I think they’re just curious.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Curious.” Vanitas lets go of the doorframe and nudges one of the floods away from Sora’s knee with his foot. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Aw, hey, yeah. They’re not doing anything, don’t worry.” Vanitas is not worried. “They just like it when I do this,” Sora says, and runs his hand up and down a new flood’s back as it crouches and wobbles in place. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas shudders. “Stop that,” he snaps. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why? They really like it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Because it </span>
  <em>
    <span>feels weird.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Stop touching it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh,” Sora says, apologetic. “Sorry.” He raises his hands, and the flood shakes like a tiny dog before blinking around, confused. Vanitas drops into a sit, rubbing a scowl back onto his face. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Traitorously, the flood makes a distressed underwater warbling noise, and tries to get back up into range of Sora’s hands. “Whoa!” he yelps, still in a baby voice for the unversed. “No, hey! Van said no. So, no more.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas snorts, and grabs the flood to pull it back. The rest of them bob their heads, like birds, or rats or something, confused. Sora giggles. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas shouldn’t destroy them — that’s something he’s supposed to be working on, feeling things instead of attacking them. Letting them happen. But he desperately wants to, and he wants to leave and pretend this never happened, but with the way Sora is looking at him, that’s not how the rest of today is going to go. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sure enough, he gets five seconds into blissful, non-touchy silence before Sora says “Sssooo...” — he draws out the ‘so’ for longer than it should be — “what does it feel like?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Weird,” Vanitas says, shortly. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Bad weird?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Uh... Vanitas opens his mouth to say “yes”, just to get Sora off his trail, but he can see the edges of a small guilt start to form in Sora’s eyes, and even though the whole look is fun on him, he doesn’t want to... deal with that, right now. “No,” he says instead, “just weird. It’s just touch but weirder.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Wow, he was raised a lot more eloquently than that. It’s just hard to describe, honestly. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That doesn’t make sense,” Sora says, thoughtfully. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You try feeling the same sensations a couple hundred little monsters feel.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora perks up, which means Vanitas failed step one of getting him to drop it. He can practically hear the little information bar. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Can you feel them walking around? Or flying?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What? No.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Can you feel them </span>
  <em>
    <span>punch</span>
  </em>
  <span> things?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No. I don’t feel them do things, I feel them—“ Vanitas fumbles for words. “You touch them. That.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Like this?” And Sora pokes a flood in the side, playfully. Vanitas startles, and the flood rolls onto its back and wiggles away from him, chittering. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Yes</span>
  </em>
  <span>. What did I say.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Don’t touch, sorry. But, it didn’t like that one.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No, and I didn’t either.” It didn’t feel like being pet. It felt like what usually happened when an unversed was interacted with — annoyance, a bit sharp, not warm. Despite himself, Vanitas starts to wonder what the difference was. The warm is... better. It’s cold now, like it always has been, but warm was a little better. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“But they liked it when I pet them?” Sora tilts his head to the side. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas doesn’t really have a retort to that. Sora presses on. “And since they’re your emotions, they’re like reflections, right?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well- no,” Vanitas starts, “or— I don’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>know</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Sora, I haven’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>asked</span>
  </em>
  <span> them.” Uneasily, he picks up an unversed and considers it. It wibbles at him. He frowns at it, and experimentally rubs its head between his thumb and forefinger. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It doesn’t really do anything, it just makes a confused </span>
  <em>
    <span>whshwhshwh</span>
  </em>
  <span> at him. Feels like nothing. Vanitas considers it, and then sticks it into Sora’s lap. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Do it again. Once,” he demands, refusing to look at Sora just in case he has that dorky triumphant grin on again. He probably does. Sora obliges, and gives the flood just a couple gentle scratches between its shoulders. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Same sensation — stronger, now that he’s closer. And it’s warm again. He knew it was different, but until it happened again he didn’t know he had missed it, a little. Vanitas hums, watching the flood shut its eyes and practically melt over Sora’s pants pocket. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hey, can I try something?” Sora asks. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I have a guess. I wanna see if it’s right. Can I touch you?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The question sets off a warning bell in Vanitas’ head, but also another quiet voice that says </span>
  <em>
    <span>he asked.</span>
  </em>
  <span> And another, slightly louder voice, that’s mostly just curious, and knows Sora doesn’t want to hurt him — </span>
  <em>
    <span>but he has before, he could. No</span>
  </em>
  <span> — and he won’t. Sora already stopped when he told him to, </span>
  <em>
    <span>he didn’t have to</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he won’t do it again. It can’t be more than...</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He takes a while to answer. Sora waits, patiently, until Vanitas sighs through his nose and says, gruffly, “Yeah.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora scoots, comically, around a little closer, trying to avoid rolling tiny flood paws under his legs. They scatter obediently, and reform in his new position. It’s cute, but Sora’s unceasingly gentle as he takes a hand and places his fingers between Vanitas’ shoulders and asks, “Does it feel something like this?” He strokes them back and forth just twice, and pulls away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Yeah, yeah it </span>
  <em>
    <span>does</span>
  </em>
  <span>. It’s warm, and the same kind of tingly-light, but a different kind of pressure (harder, more there, not ghostly) and Vanitas feels himself relax ever so slightly. And it’s still weird, but as he thinks about it, he thinks it’s... nice weird. Unusual, in the weird sense, but also the unfamiliar one — the one that feels okay. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s not used to touch that does that. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Mm,” Vanitas grunts. “I guess.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I thought so!” Sora says. He says it weird, softer. One of the floods, apparently jealous, pushes its way up into Sora’s lap again and nudges repeatedly at his fingers. Sora closes them, and the flood shoves its head between them, flat in the middle of its face like it’s made of liquid. It warbles at him, in that position.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas scoffs. “Well, go on then. Give it what it wants.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Huh? That’s okay?” He sounds almost </span>
  <em>
    <span>hopeful</span>
  </em>
  <span>. What a sap. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas waves his hand, turning away and pointedly looking at not Sora. “Whatever.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora scoops two unversed into his lap at once, and starts petting them again — gently, Vanitas notices. Gently at first, and at no argument, back to how he was before. And it does feel nice — nice is the word, Vanitas has decided — nicer now that Sora seems to be aware of the direct translation, and is petting both floods in alternating spots to make a little cascading pattern down Vanitas’ back. He hums again, feeling the trails of Sora’s fingers slowly ease his tight-wound muscles out of their locked positions. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas feels his head dip, and decides to nip that one in the bud. He leans back, coolly, laying down on the floor, his arms behind his head. He watches the ceiling, and tries to think around what makes this touch so different. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s been touched before. Even softly, he guesses — Ventus’ hand on his was soft. Riku’s competitive nudge was not soft, but it wasn’t harsh either. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(A tiny swirl of black smoke eases its way out between Sora’s hands. He gives the remaining flood a couple little chin scratches, before it does the same.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora’s different. Maybe it’s just by virtue of being Sora. Vanitas wrinkles his nose. There are a lot of things about him that are just “because he’s Sora”, which is both mystifying and frankly annoying. But, you know. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>... Sora’s hands stall. He must have seen Vanitas thinking too obviously. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Go up,” Vanitas demands, quietly, just to make sure he doesn’t think he should stop. Not yet, at least. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Vanitas,” Sora whispers.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Mm?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The unversed are gone.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“...so?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He can feel Sora blinking at him. Processing, with that silly soft expression and those wide, blue eyes. Vanitas turns to him finally, and looks up through his lashes, a slight resting glare on his own. But Sora’s nothing but happy, no annoyance, no reservation, or pity, just soft. Vanitas looks away. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There’s a brush, barely, of fingernails against his skin. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora loops his fingers through the short matted hair at the base of his neck and </span>
  <em>
    <span>oh</span>
  </em>
  <span>, that’s... very nice. That’s very nice. Having had time to process the feeling for a few minutes, this is very very nice, and if he could pin down a word stronger than that, he would. Vanitas leans his head into it, his eyes fluttering closed. And Sora moves, in gentle waves up and around carding through his hair, and he doesn’t really mind that he’s being moved a little with the motions. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s nice. It’s warm. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He falls asleep there.</span>
</p>
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